O Great Humility

by Anthony Esolen

As I write this, my dog Jasper, he of the seventy tricks, is lying atop the sofa, and looking out the window to check for the neighborhood children coming home from school. He waits patiently for me also when I come home from school, as patiently as did the dog Argos, "Flash" as I call him, when Odysseus his master came home after twenty years of war and wandering. No disguise could fool the sagacious dog. But so feeble was old Flash, flea-stung and neglected, warming his bony form on the dung heap, that all he could do to greet his master was flatten his ears a little and whimper and try . . .

Touchstone is a Christian journal, conservative in doctrine and eclectic in content, with editors and readers from each of the three great divisions of Christendom—Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox.

The mission of the journal and its publisher, The Fellowship of St. James, is to provide a place where Christians of various backgrounds can speak with one another on the basis of shared belief in the fundamental doctrines of the faith as revealed in Holy Scripture and summarized in the ancient creeds of the Church.